Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Broncos Trail Series 2-1, Home Ice Woes Continue

That's how many home playoff games the Broncos have lost consecutively dating back to the 2004 playoffs.

J.D. Watt's powerplay goal just shy of eight minutes into overtime gave the Pats a 4-3 win in a wild contest filled with scoring chances and turnovers - which usually go hand-in-hand.

For me discipline is becoming an issue for the Broncos. Bad penalties, in the Pats offensive territory was their undoing. The Pats had another eight powerplays and scored twice as their PP continues to operate in upwards of 28% in this series.

It looked like the Broncos really missed the two veteran d-men Michael Wilson and Jesse Dudas who are out with injury. The two play in all situations - especially the powerplay which failed to execute. It had it's chances - but not near enough. It's been the difference in the series so far.

Eric Doyle, Spencer McAvoy, Bretton Stamler, Erik Felde, Dale Wiese, Derek Claffey and Ryan Molle all saw time at the point with the man advantage as the Broncos looked for the right mix to generate something.

The Broncos couldn't have asked for a better start as they held a 10-1 shot advantage just minutes into the opening frame. The Pats killed off a pair of powerplay opportunities and gained momentum after that to close off the first period. Shots were 17-15 Broncos after a wild first.

The thing that troubles me is this series is almost mirroring last years. The Pats take game one, the Broncos game two, the Pats game three. Not only that but special teams was in Regina favour by a mile last playoff series and it's holding true in this best-of-seven tilt.

If the trend continues, the Pats will take a 3-1 series lead back to home ice. They get Jordan Eberle back tonight after he missed game three with suspension.

5 comments:

That was a pretty crazy back and forth game last night. That Yonkman almost stole the game last night from the Pats. That kid can really stand on his head, however with a games rest Ebs is gonna light him up!

Great game last night Jon, to be honest you did a fairly good game. I also must say, you are not as annoying as James Gallo to listen too... I will also say these two teams are very talented, and the games they play each other are awesome to watch... I don't think you could have asked for a better series thus far... Keep up the Great Work... Go Pats Go... P.S. Jon quit whining about not having the two defenceman, we didn't have Leffler, and Eberle last night, and now we have lost Kulchar... The league better suspend, whomever hit him from behind, I unfortunately missed the hit... Not sure what I was doing likely putting kids to bed, however, if we had league imposed suspensions for our hits, they better suspend the Bronco that did the same thing... However Jon, you don't hear Pats fans crying, and going on and on about how much we missed our leading scorer last night, and the other two guys... By the way Jon, you could have done the soccer GOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL when Watt lit the lamp in OT... I wouldn't have minded...

Twitter @jonkeenNLsports

Jon Keen is the play-by-play voice for the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League and host of the "WHL This Week" Radio Show which is available at whl.ca.
After spending seven seasons as play-by-play broadcaster for the Swift Current Broncos, Jon headed west to call games for the Blazers for the start of the 2010-11 season on Radio NL
Jon has covered some major events in the sports world including NHL drafts in Ottawa (twice), Raleigh, NC, Vancouver and Columbus.